


Shadow of Your Heart

by theangelswans



Category: iZombie (TV)
Genre: F/M, Sort of AU?, set just when Blaine takes the cure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-18
Updated: 2018-07-18
Packaged: 2019-06-12 14:00:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15341367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theangelswans/pseuds/theangelswans
Summary: Liv Moore’s life changed in an instant when she became a zombie. Things are again thrown into turmoil when Blaine, about to take the cure and thinking he might die, calls Liv to tell her that he loves her.





	Shadow of Your Heart

**Author's Note:**

> So this is the first thing I've written for this fandom, but there's not enough of these two out there. I based this off a tumblr post about what if Blaine called Liv to tell her he loves her before taking the cure, because he thought he might die, but then he forgets that he told her because of the amnesia.

_Our lives are composed of moments. Moments that are happy, or sad, or seemingly small and inconsequential but still something you think about years later, or moments where your whole life can change in the blink of an eye._

_There are times where we make a decision that cancels out all other possibilities for that situation, and there’s no going back to how you were before. You’ve made that single choice and it determines the path you follow from then on, and you cant go back to the one you were on before._

_Then there are decisions that are thrust upon you, but they still have the same effect of cancelling out any other options you might have made. I did not choose to become a zombie. But because I am one, I can’t get married to Major. I couldn’t give blood to save my little brother’s life and now my family hates me. I eat brains, solve crimes, and catch killers. Still, even though all this was forced upon me, it all started with the simple decision of going to a boat party that fateful night._

_And all this started when I decided to pick up the phone…_

—

“Don’t you ever get tired of watching these zombie stereotypes?” Peyton asked, not even looking at Liv.

Her eyes were glued to the screen, as Liv’s were, while _Zombie High Season Three_ played out on the screen. The kids were running around outside being chased by a hoard of at least five zombies, which was trouble for a human but nothing for Liv. Peyton’s socked feet were up on the table as she leaned back into the couch, her hand going almost mechanically from the oversized popcorn bowl to her mouth.

“Not really. It helps me keep my cover,” Liv said in a voice that could have been taken as joking but without any real effort in it. She had been leaning forward with her elbows on her thighs and her chin resting in her hands, but she sat up and stretched her arms out in dramatic flourish. “I don’t look or—thank God— _smell_ like I’m rotting, so who would be able to tell that this beautiful flesh is as dead as that band you used to like.”

At this, Liv cast a glance over her shoulder at Peyton, a smirk curving the edges of her mouth. Peyton whacked her gently on the shoulder with her popcorn-eating hand.

“They’re not dead!” Peyton cried, to which Liv stuck out her tongue while brushing salt off her shoulder. “They had some decent songs,” Peyton added.

“If you’re thirteen,” Liv said through laughter, returning to her previous position of leaning forward with her elbows on her knees.

This time it was Peyton who stuck out her tongue even though Liv couldn’t see it, but both of them were smiling. It was nice, Liv thought, to be able to talk like this with Peyton, and to be able to share such moments as these. She remembered her first five months of being a zombie and having literally nobody else in the world to talk to about what she was going through, and how alone she felt. Even when she could confide in Ravi, she had still kept her secret hidden from Peyton. She had wanted to tell her, but, well, she was afraid of how she might react. Her finding out…had been difficult. Liv couldn’t blame her, really. Seeing her best friend with red, raging eyes and a knife embedded in her hand, and one she had driven deep into the skull of a madman zombie she created, must have been a lot. It was truly a testament to how understanding and brave peyton was that she had come back, and could now be here like this, joking and making comments about a zombie show, with her zombie best friend right next to her.

Liv felt warmth blossom inside of her at thought of knowing she had friends who would always accept her and love her unconditionally. She wanted to look back and smile at her, but knew she’d probably get another snarky comment. She just kept her eyes on the TV screen, watching teenagers try and take down a hoard of zombies. There were three zombies now, less than before. Peyton made a pouty noise and Liv knew they had run out of popcorn even before she said it.

“I’m going to make more,” Peyton said, standing up.

She skated over to the kitchen, gliding on the floor using her fuzzy socks as skates, then depositing the empty popcorn bowl on the counter.

“Do you want me to pause it?” Liv called to her, eyes still on the screen. She leaned back on the couch.

“No, I can hear it from here. Tell me how many more of your zombie brethren they take down,” Peyton called back, going through the cabinets for the microwave popcorn.

“Well they’re down three now—” Liv began to say, when her phone rang.

She grabbed it from the table and sprang off the couch, crossing to the corner of the open kitchen and stopping before going into the hall. She held her phone up. “Be right back,” Liv said, before disappearing into her bedroom.

When she got there, however, she almost regretted even the effort of getting up when she looked at the caller ID.

_Blaine_.

Liv rolled her eyes, wondering what the scumlord wanted now, and how much it was going to completely ruin her evening. She sighed heavily and picked up the phone.

“Hello?” she asked, in her most deadpan voice.

“Liv!” came Blaine’s excited reply, completely missing, or more likely disregarding, the tone she was using to try and tell him that she really did not want to be bothered. “I thought you weren’t going to pick up there for a second; It’s so good to hear your voice.”

“What do want, Blaine?” Liv asked.

“Exactly that, to hear your voice. To tell you what a pleasure it’s been to know you—” he said, when Liv sighed again.

She pinched the bridge of her nose and flopped back against the bed. He was using that stupidly exaggerated tone he always did when he was joking, like when he had asked to go ‘bust some criminal skulls’ with her after she had visited him at Shady Plots. Liv didn’t know why he had bothered to call her just to flatter her with false compliments, but he was either trying to get her to do something she most certainly would not want to do, or he was mocking her. She wouldn’t put it past him to call her just to mock her and wreck the very nice evening she was having with Peyton.

“I’m serious!” Blaine seemed to notice how exasperated Liv was and lost some of the flippancy in his voice. “I wanted to tell you how much you mean to me, Liv. I know you hate me, which,” he paused, “ _fair_ , but you really do mean the world to me.”

Liv was stunned into momentary silence. The way he said that, it was the most earnest she had ever heard him, and actually kind. Coming from anyone else, it would have sent her heart stuttering and she would have thought it was unbelievably sweet—but that was if it was anyone else. Not Blaine. He didn’t do _sweet_.

She restrained herself from sighing again when she realized the reason he called her.

“I get it. You’re drunk.”

“No!” Blaine shot back immediately, sounding offended. There was a pause, and Liv could hear some papers being shuffled and glass clinking. “Well…maybe a little,” he finally admitted.

“Mm,” Liv mumbled, getting ready to just hang up on him already and get back to watching _Zombie High_ with Peyton.

“No, wait!” Blaine called to her. He launched into what sounded like a bad coughing fit, and Liv briefly wondered if he was sick. “I really am being serious. I just wanted to talk to you.” There was something desperate in the way that he said it.

Liv ran a hand through her hair and turned her head to look out her bedroom window, seeing the night sky blanket the city but the lights still shine brightly throughout. She really did not want to humor a drunken Blaine, of all people, but a part of her almost felt bad for him. She remembered the warm feeling she had while sitting with Peyton, thinking about how her friends loved her and would always be there for her. She knew Blaine didn’t have that, except maybe for Don E, who was sketchy at best. She was his enemy, and he really must have absolutely no friends if she was who he chose to call when he was drunk and alone.

“What did you want to talk to me about, then?”

“Oh, well, I—” Blaine began, then started coughing again. “I’m getting ready to take the cure, the one the Good Doctor gave me,” he said, sounding a little out of breath.

Liv remembered that, that he needed the cure or he would end up like the poor dead rat in Ravi’s lab. That explained the coughing fits; he was probably getting to the point where he would be forced to take the cure, whether it worked or not. It was still untested, and from what she had heard from Ravi, some of the other cure tests had not worked out so well for those they were tested on. He was probably afraid, Liv thought.

“The untested one,” Blaine said, drawing Liv away from her thoughts. “I’ve seen what an untested cure can do to a zombie, believe me,” he said, then paused again. “So I called you. Because I might die either way, and I wanted to tell you this.”

Liv sat up on her bed now, leaning forward with the phone pressed to her ear. She was paying an awful lot of attention now, even though it was probably just out of sheer curiosity of what Blaine, murdering drug lord, would confess on his deathbed. This was a decision he was choosing to make, to tell her these words. She didn’t ask for this, or expect it at all, and even though this was another thing that threw her world into turmoil so that nothing made sense anymore, she had made the decision herself to pick up the phone and listen to him.

The lights outside Liv’s bedroom shifted and sent glowing light through the glass, but not all at once. It was shattered into smaller pieces that danced on her walls and the floor, a contrast to the night that surrounded her. She watched the changing patterns as she listened to Blaine speak those words.

“I love you.”

—

Liv was no longer human. She had been that way for a while. But now, now she was no longer a zombie; she wasn’t even a body. She felt she was just a collection of thoughts, or stars, a compilation of moments and decisions, everything mixed up. She could have been a robot, or a dandelion on the wind for all the world knew.

She walked out of her bedroom and down the hall without registering what she was doing. It was muscle memory at this point, her body moving mechanically because her mind had flown off in some unknown direction, just like her life had this past year. The problem with making decisions about what path to take is that she didn’t know where any of them led. She could guess and make predictions, calculate the estimated outcome and form a hypothesis, but nothing was ever certain. She never knew what the consequences would be from whatever decisions she made, and she had certainly never expected this.

She walked into the living room area with her phone still in her hand, but she held it loosely, her arms limp at her sides. Peyton was sitting on the couch, cross-legged with the bowl of popcorn in her lap, eyes on the screen. Liv distantly recognized she was watching something other than _Zombie High_ , but she didn’t pay much attention to it beyond that.

“Hey,” Peyton mumbled with a mouth full of popcorn. “I paused _Zombie High_ ,” she swallowed. “What took you so long?”

Peyton looked up at her friend while asking the question, but the words died in her throat when she saw the vacant expression on Liv’s face, and a hundred other questions popped up instead. She set the popcorn bowl to the side and hopped up from her seat, moving to stand by Liv and put her hands gently on the sides of her arms.

“Hey, are you okay?” Peyton asked, though Liv only stared. “What happened?” Peyton rubbed Liv’s arms a little. “Hey, who was that?”

Liv moved her face away from Peyton’s, and slumped down on the couch. She looked at the phone in her hand as if she had forgotten it was there, then spoke.

“Blaine.”

“Oh, that explains it,” Peyton deadpanned. She moved to sit down beside Liv and put her arm around the zombie girl’s shoulder. “What did he say? Do I have to kick his ass? Because I will,” Peyton said, her voice filled with both friendly sympathy and righteous fury.

Liv was already shaking her head even as Peyton said the words. “Don’t—” she said, urgent yet confused, “No, no, I mean—”

Liv sighed again and curled forward, going to put her face in her hands, then running the fingers through her hair. She put her elbows on her thighs and made a web with her fingers, resting her head on them. She was looking straight ahead but not really seeing anything, her mind too caught up in whirling thoughts to recognize anything beyond the skeleton impression of her own apartment in front of her. Everything seemed topsy-turvy all of a sudden. She was silent for a few moments, but she could feel Peyton’s apprehension just as she could feel her friend’s hand on her back.

“He told me he loves me.”

“ _What?!_ ” Peyton said, and Liv could feel her body jolt ever so slightly.

Liv turned her head to look at Peyton, the shook written all over her face. Liv couldn’t get her head around it, and she thought it must be even stranger to Peyton, who once thought of Blaine as someone worthy enough to be with before she found out that he was a serial killer and the man who had turned her best friend into a zombie. Liv never really had that mode of thinking that Blaine might have been an alright person. She didn’t even know if that was the right word to describe it.

Liv sat up and leaned back on the couch. “I really don’t know. He said he was going to take the cure,” she gestured vaguely, looking at Peyton, then back out into space. “The one Ravi gave him that wasn’t tested yet. He wanted to tell me in case he died from it.”

Peyton didn’t say anything for a few moments, but shifted her position so she was back against the couch with Liv too, leaning up against the girl’s pale shoulder. She curled her legs in to her chest and her fuzzy socks brushed Liv’s arm. It tickled, but Liv couldn’t even laugh in this situation, and just let out a huff of air.

“Do you…” Peyton began, and Liv looked at her.

“No!” Liv vehemently denied, even though the words hadn’t been fully spoken. “How could I ever love _Blaine?_ ”

Peyton put her hands up like she was about to be arrested. “Hey, just asking. Had to make sure. He can be very… _convincing_ ,” she said. She brushed a skein of hair from her face and pursed her lips in thought.

Liv shook her head resolutely. “Not for me, not after I’ve seen him kill—wait,” Liv paused, seeing the look on Peyton’s face, as if she was remembering something not entirely awful, but instead looking on it with a nostalgic fondness.

“Is this weird for you?” she asked.

She turned to face Peyton. Blaine had been introduced to her as someone pretending to be kind, or willing to help her. Someone who had had drug charges but gave off the whole pretense of trying to right past wrongs and be a better person by helping her with the Boss case. Seeing things from this perspective, Liv understood how Peyton could fall for whatever Blaine charmed her with before the rest of his sordid past, and present, came to light. Maybe she was nostalgic for who she had thought him to be.

Peyton shook her head. “No, definitely not.” She held up a hand as a physical signal of her words. “I’m never falling for that again. And I certainly don’t have feelings for him after knowing what he’s done.”

At those last words, the look on the lawyer’s face morphed from fondness to ruefulness. Liv also felt a rush of anger through her, thinking about Lowell, Major, the poor murdered teens Blaine had used to serve his business.

“So you don’t still have feelings for him?” Liv asked, to which Peyton shook her head. The movement sent shiny brunette strands flying back and forth. “But if you did…” Liv continued, in a tone she hoped conveyed that she wouldn’t judge Peyton for it.

“Nooooo,” Peyton said, even more fervently shaking her head. She stopped and smiled at her friend, right before she pounced on Liv. She made it look like she was going in for a hug but started tickling her.

Liv finally broke out of her stupor at this, and started laughing. a giant grin broke out on her face. “Stop it!” she cried, playfully swatting at Peyton. They both giggled together, even though Liv kept trying to squirm away.  

When Peyton had stopped tickling her and both girls had calmed down, Liv curled her legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them.

“What am I gonna do?” She said, breathless.

Peyton shrugged. “Honestly, don’t worry about it. He was probably drunk and didn’t know what he was even saying.”

“He did mention that,” Liv said in a tone that read as ‘ _fair point_.’

Peyton held her hands up at her sides. “See?”

Liv looked at her, troubled for a moment. She remembered how desperate Blaine had been to talk to her, how earnest he sounded. “But he wasn’t joking.”

Peyton put a hand on Liv’s shoulder and gave her a sympathetic smile. “Hey, chance is, he won’t even remember it when he wakes up tomorrow.”

Liv gave a short laugh at this. If that was true, then he was in for a killer hangover in the morning. Still, she thought she would visit him to talk about what he had said, and maybe try and make sense of this. If it had just been drunken ramblings or the thoughts of someone afraid he might die, Liv would find out. If what he said was true…well, she didn’t know what she’d do about it, but it would be good to know anyway.

—

**Author's Note:**

> Alright I hope you liked it, and let me know if you want me to continue!


End file.
